To Deliver a Child
by balletbaby
Summary: The women of Rittenhouse Women's Health Center get more than they bargain for with their newest patient. As Lana puts it, how do you get a patient through labor who doesn't know what labor, pregnancy or sex is? Definitely not the conventional delivery methods, that's for sure.
1. Chapter 1

"Uh, Lu?"

Luisa Delgado looked up.

"Yeah?"

"I...think you need to come out here."

Lana's eyes were wide and her face held an expression that could be either confusion or fear. What Lu could feel from her was that something was very, very wrong.

Projecting an air of confidence she did not feel Lu smiled at the group of women circled about her. "I'll be right back," she excused herself, standing up and following Lana out of the room.

"What's up?"

Lana took her by the arms.

Having glanced around the room, feeling as if there should be carnage everywhere Lu noticed a nearly empty waiting area hardly anyone there for either herself or for Andy.

"We got a problem."

"A problem?" She echoed and looked again to who she knew was her sole patient in the space, Audrey Perkins, who sat calmly flipping through a magazine. The woman across from her, one of Andy's she classified her, was penning through her date book. No problem there.

Lana ducked in closer in secrecy. "A big problem," she hissed.

"What's wrong? You're startin' to freak me out here, Lana."

"Good," she nodded. "That's real good. That's about where you need to start for this."

"I don't get it, Lana. What are you talkin' about?"

She led Lu to her domain before continuing. "She came in about a half hour ago. Not came in," she corrected herself, "she was dropped off, deposited, ditched."

Lu just looked confused.

"When I asked her she said her stomach hurt. When I ask the woman who brung her," she shrugged, "some Italian I think, not much English, she just said, "I bring her here. You take her now. I have done my duty. Is not my child."

"Who's not who's child?"

"Beats me!" Lana threw her hands up in emphasis. "That old woman got out of here faster than a Mexican fleeting immigration."

"Lana," she drew the word out and put her hands on Lana's shoulders. "You're not making any sense. I still don't get a word you're talkin' about."

"This girl Lu." Gut the size of Texas, gotta be about 12 months pregnant by the looks of it."

Lu made a face at the joke.

"Okay some pregnant teen is here, I got it," she answered. "That's nothing new. So what's the problem?"

"Where do I start?"

"She's no teen Lu. I'd say she looks about ten, the size of a bean pole, not counting her gut and get this- you better sit down," she added, pulling across a rolling chair.

Once her friend and colleague had sat as suggested Lana dropped the bomb.

"The girl doesn't even know she's pregnant. She doesn't know what sex is, doesn't even know how babies get made. Lana knows this girl's had sex-"

"raped, she was raped. If she's under 18 it was rape."

Lana waved it away. "Like I said the woman who dropped her off here isn't kin. I don't think this girl has had anyone to raise her, doesn't seem like she's been in school much at all. My guess is serious neglect, abuse, likely the girl had more to worry about stayin' alive than stayin in school. Mom was probably an addict and didn't think anything of sending the kid, let alone tellin' her the facts of life."

"So how'd this girl get pregnant?"

"That's the other part of the story. Lana's got a guess, but Lana's not wrong."

"So this girl's here and she doesn't know she's pregnant."

"Doesn't even know what the word means," Lana clarified.

"That ain't all," she added.

Lu sighed. "Lemme guess," she could feel her body getting heavier with each breath, "she's-"

"In labor," Lana finished. "You got it."

"Lana knows you've delivered a ton of babies, but you got any idea how to get a kid through labor who doesn't know what labor, sex or pregnancy is?"


	2. Chapter 2

No sooner did Lu walk into the waiting area, which was in the middle of the odd slow moment, eyes on the blonde haired kid slouched in a chair, than said kid had a contraction strong enough to bring the girl out of the chair, to her knees, then curled over in a ball on the floor.

Curious to see if Lana was right- about the girl not knowing she was pregnant, not about her being in labor, Lu just had to ask. "What's wrong?" She wanted to see what, or if, the tiny blonde kid would answer.

"My stomach hurts," she moaned. "Real bad," she clarified.

Lu put a hand to the girl's bony back.

Labor is the least of this girl's problems, Lu realized, checking and noting the time on her watch. Lu felt as if her brain were being twisted. It was so unthinkable that any girl in the United States could not just not know she was pregnant, but literally not know what pregnancy was.

She glanced over at Lana, who was still standing by the desk, watching. Lana looked at her with a cocked head and pursed lips. Lu could hear her I told you so.

A minute later by Lu's watch, she helped the girl up to standing, then asked,

"What's your name?"

"Anna," she mumbled.

"Anna!" Lu exclaimed. "I've always loved that name!"

She steered Anna towards her office, announcing as she did, "I just want to take a look at you in my office."

Once in the room, or rather, the exam room adjoining her office she asked,

"Do you know why Mrs. Adamo brought you here?"

"Cuz my stomach hurts."

Lu took a deep breath in through her nose, trying to think of what to say, what to ask, everything about this was baffling.

"How long has your stomach been hurting?"

"A while."

"How long?"

"I dunno. I don't really pay attention anymore."

"To your stomach hurting?"

"To time. Days, hours n' stuff. I don't get the difference. Day and night, yeah. But even that doesn't matter.

"Okay," she answered slowly, "how long has your stomach been hurting bad, like just now?"

Anna shrugged again. "Last night I guess. Mrs. Adamo told me to quiet my mouth and she'd take me to the clinic when she woke up."

Holy crap. She could feel the confusion and terror the child must have felt as her body was wracked and bombarded by unassailing pain. She probably thought she was going to die.

Pissed, Lu decided on another line of questioning.

"How old are you?"

She shrugged again. "I dunno," she answered.

Without realizing, Lu's mouth hung open in shock. Several silent moments later she managed to close it, but still was at a loss as to what to say.

Short of amnesia, Lu'd never heard a patient, let alone a child say she didn't know her own age.

Finally, she just asked the only question in her head. "How can you not know how old you are?"

"All the days seem the same. How am I supposed to know one year from a different year? Time doesn't matter for me," she explained. "Everything's always the same."

Lu shivered as if a cold breeze had gone through her. She hoped Lana was on the phone to the cops.

Abuse, depression, possibly even captivity came to mind.

"What school do you go to?"

"I don't go to school."

Why does that not surprise me?

"I haven't been in a while."

"How long a while we talkin' about?"

"I know I went to kindergarden cuz my mom needed a cheap babysitter. Then once I could stay home by myself easy I stopped going. Mom said she didn't want anyone asking questions."

Asking questions about what? Lu wanted to ask, but instead replaced it with,

"Where do you live?"

That answer alarmed Luisa. Anna lived down the block from her old clinic.

"Can you just fix me up already? Mrs. Adamo said I couldn't come back to her place until I got myself fixed up."

Lu steeled her mouth closed and simply nodded-through gritted teeth. Foster mother, old neighbor it didn't matter. Any woman who could see and hadn't taken Anna to a medical facility before now didn't deserve to have anyone in their care.

"What's your Ma do for a living?"

Another shrug. "Nothing."

"She left a while ago. I'm kinda glad. It's way nicer at Mrs. Adamo's house. "

"Why did she leave? Do you know that?"

"She got mad at me. Said I was trying to steal her boyfriend. Then one day she had me go over to old Mrs. Adamo's apartment, and when I came back, she was gone. Everything was gone."

"What about this?" Lu pointed to her prominent stomach.

Anna looked at Lu again as if she thought she were nuts. "I got fat."

Lu stared. The girl was serious. She had to work hard to keep her jaw from dropping in shock.

"I started eating a lot after Mom left, well not a lot cuz I don't wanna take food outta Mrs. Adamo's mouth, but still. I've been hungry all the time. I eat as much as I can, but I'm still hungry.

While it was clear that Anna wasn't mentally slow, it was obvious that she had had very little schooling (judging from her inability to write more than her name on Lana's intake form, and not knowing how to tell time) and very little exposure to others adults or children. What exposure she had was probably to a drug addict mother and her mother's pimps or lovers, none of whom were likely to engage a child in conversation, likely something much worse instead.

"Let me see those," she nodded to the forms in Anna's hand. Lu could already see that only the girl's name had been written, in an exceptionally childish hand.

Lu took the blank intake forms from her and tried to think about where to put the kid. Putting her in L&D seemed both bizarre and cruel.

As if Anna's body were reading Lu's mind, Anna screamed in pain and put a hand to her stomach, hunching over, crouching down on the floor using the exam table for support, suddenly grabbing her crotch as if she'd been hit with a baseball bat.

Lu felt panicked. That answers that.

"Lana!" She yelled. "Get Peter in here!"

"It's okay," she whispered to Anna. "You're gonna be allright."


	3. Chapter 3

"Oh, crap," were the eloquent, professional words that instantly fell out of Peter Riggs' mouth upon seeing the reason he'd been summoned in true Delgado style, to Lu's exam room.

Kid in labor were the the words that processed through his mind. Followed by, oh shit, which he at least had the presence of mind to modify slightly before the thought went from his mind to his mouth.

The kid hunched down on the floor grabbing herself, for reasons as far from Michael Jackson as possible, looked up when she heard his voice. Upon seeing him, Anna let out something like a scream and tried as best she could to scoot herself as far away from him as possible.

Seeing the terror in her eyes, Peter was able to do the math. Pregnancy, fear of men... it wasn't brain surgery after all. He held up both hands and began backing away.

"I'm sorry, he apologized, "I'll go. I'll go. I won't be in here with you."

"Peter!" Lu glared at him.

He just shook his head, hoping she'd figure it out.

"Don't worry, I'll find you an alternate," he assured her.

"Better do it quick," she answered.

THe only thoughts in his head were female and maternal. He needed to find a qualified medical professional who was female, and preferably had had children.

He snapped his fingers when the perfect solution came to him. "Bingo!"

"Dr. Campbell? Dr. Delgato could use your assistance in the exam room."

"WHat's going on Riggs?"

That's when they heard the scream.

"My god, what's going on out there?"

"What Lu needs your help with," he explained. "I'd assist, of course, but it is something of a delicate matter."

"She doing sugery without anasthesia?"

Something like that.

Without waiting for further explaination, Andy Campbell walked determidely up to Lu's office door, flung it open.

"Good god!" She exclaimed.

"I could use a little help here," Lu answered. "Clearly too far gone to move her, and having Peter in here is a bad idea."

Her experience with rape victims in the Army helped her to sum up the situation with ease. "I see," she answered, moving quickly to Lu's side.

"Hi, sweetie," she smiled at the girl, who resembled one of the blond haired Brady kids, "I'm Dr. Campbell, we're going to help you out, okay?"

Too weak and terrified to do much else, Anna just nodded.

Andy and Lu helped lift the girl to her feet and get her up onto the exam table.

"Okay, Anna, I'm going to have to get your clothes off from the waist down, to see what's wrong with you."

Andy looked at her like she was crazy. Lu ignored it, knowing Andy didn't know what she knew, or rather, what she knew the kid didn't know.

"It's not just your stomach that's hurting now, is it?"

Anna shook her head hard.

When Lu caught Dr. Cambell's look of shock at Anna's confusion as to her condition Lu mouthed the words, she doesn't know anything- about anything with an eyeroll of disgust.

That just made Andy look even more shocked.

"Like girls in India and the Middle East," she whispered, refering to all the girls forced into marriage and pregnancy even before hitting their teens. "And every other backward, ignorant, or woman hating culture."

"Don't leave anyone out," Lu smirked.

Carefully, but quickly the women made quick work of undressing her.

In a brief moment of calm, Lana knocked on the door, and opened it a crack. "How's it going?" She whispered.

Campbell stepped out of the exam room, slightly, close enough to be ready for action, but far enough to keep her patient from hearing.

"Not going anywhere fast," she muttered.

"Fast enough," Lu answered, picking up on the conversation, standing still in the exam room, just behind Andy.

"So, what's the problem?"

"Mortal terror" she answered.

"Get her into surgery! Miracle of modern medicine," Lana answered.

Both Lu and Andy stared at her.

Lana held up both hands, astonished that the seemingly smart doctors weren't following.

"Anyone heard of that thing called-"

"A C-section?" Campbell asked, shocked.

"Yeah!" Lana nodded, feeling ready to party, glad somebody's brain finally got on the bandwagon.

"That's a serious medical procedure with lasting consequences," Lu answered.

"More serious than the lasting consequences of a vaginal childbirth on a child?" Lana threw a hand to her hip and gaped.

"Her hips are developed enough to handle a vaginal delivery."

"Possibly," Lana corrected her. "Possibly. I doubt it, by the looks of her," she added. "And even grown women, some you don't even know the baby won't fit till the last minute and you rush them off for surgery. Seems to me this is killing two birds with one stone, if you know what I mean. More expedient too."

"Contrary to the current celeb culture," Lu added, heavy emphasis and disgust on the 'celeb culture' phrase, "C-sections aren't as simple as stitching someone up or applying a band-aid."

"Cesarean sections have been known to result in death."

"So has vaginal child-birth."

"If a serious complication arises, we can consider a c-section," she countered. A condition serious enough to outweigh the risk that a c-section could kill her, verus a complication that will kill her during vaginal delivery."

"What about the emotional trauma? The lasting trauma that the pain of childbirth causes."

Lu opened her mouth to object to that, then shut it, realizing Lana was right. And, from the look on Andy's face, she realized it too.

"At least she'll be alive to deal with it," that was the last thing Campbell was willing to offer. This wasn't a discussion. The case was closed.

A shriek from Anna settled the matter, and before heading back in Lu looked at Lana. "Could use your help, too. An extra pair of hands wouldn't hurt."


	4. Chapter 4

"Oh uh uh," Lana shook her head, and began backing up hands in the air. "No way. If you're not going to get the kid into surgery no way am I gonna stand here and watch her be put through hell. Nuh uh, no way. Lana is not doin' that."

"Fine," Lu snapped, her anger at the situation spilling out, "whatever. We don't need you."

It was a lie. She was not happy with Lana. THe least her friend could do was help them out.

"Lana'll stay in the waiting area," she offered as compromise, her voice and posture reflecting everything Lu wasn't: confidence, assuredness, and calm. "Let the patients comin' in know what's going on. So they don't think you're doing some sort of guerilla surgery in here-"

"Or get scared off and high tail it to another doctor," Andy added.

Lana smiled. "Glad you get Lana's drift."

With that she walked away, leaving Andy and Lu to deal with the kid.

Anna shrieked a far reaching and long shriek, again grabbing for her groin in a futile attempt to stop whatever it was that was hurting her.

Andy seemed to have decided to pick up the reins on this one, as she'd positioned herself at Anna's feet.

When the girl quieted, Andy reached foward, lifting the small face so that their eyes met.

"Anna," she kept her voice calm and steady like the voice one tried to use when talking down a predator threatening to kill one of your men, "I'm just going to take a look between your legs and into your vagina to see what's happening to you, allright?"

Mid-sentence she heard her partner pretend to cough while saying, "She doesn't know what that means!"

Without taking her eyes from her work, Andy calmly said, "Mind filling me in?"

Apparently Lu was happy to do it. Immediately she knelt down from where she'd been standing between the door and Andy. She edged closer to the woman and muttered softly,

"Suspected prolonged captivity, little to no formal education. Does not know her anatomy, doesn't know what sex is or that what's happening to her is called labor. Or," she added belatedly, "what pregnancy is."

Campbell blew out breathe between tight lips. After a moment to collect herself, she gave a curt prefunctory solider nod. "I understand."

Her voice was emotionless. Rather it sounded that way. Andy Campbell's way of hiding strong emotion was to voice none at all.

"We're at a plus one," she commented. "I don't want to move her."

Lu nodded, feeling oddly frozen in place and afraid. "I think she'd agree with that."

She couldn't tell if her voice was actually shaking or if it were just her imagination.

Dr. Campbell smiled at little Anna. As she screamed in agony and once again attempted to block her groin with her hands Andy motioned to Lu.

"If you could-" she nodded at Anna's tiny hands, and with a start Lu jumped.

"Yeah, yeah sure," she answered in a voice that seemed higher than normal.

"And," she added as if she were ordering coffee, "you could breath, Delgado. Everyone's gonna get through this just fine."


End file.
